Punishment Vs. Positive Reinforcement

by George N. Root III, Demand Media

Motivating and disciplining employees are often accomplished either through punishment or positive reinforcement. To use these two psychological approaches effectively, a manager needs to understand what each concept is and how it applies to a situation. Using punishment when positive reinforcement would be more effective can damage morale and hurt productivity. Learn how to analyze a situation and determine what tactic would be most effective.

Definition

Punishment is the use of negative reaction to discourage a certain behavior. For example, docking an employee one hour of pay for being 15 minutes late to work is punishment. Positive reinforcement is encouraging an activity by providing a positive response. For example, the sales staff continues to work hard to exceed sales goals because of the monthly performance bonus program. To maintain the positive response, the sales department is conditioned to work toward][] receiving the monthly bonus.

Difference

The key difference between punishment and positive reinforcement is that punishment dissipates a tendency where positive reinforcement strengthens a behavior. Punishment tends to attack bad habits and positive reinforcement is often used to develop good business practices. You need to understand this difference to use these tactics properly. If you are trying to create good customer service skills in your employees, then punishing them may not be as effective as offering positive reinforcement for properly executed tasks.

Warning

Punishment can be a straightforward way of altering employee behavior. It is not difficult for employees to understand that they have done something wrong when they are punished. But positive reinforcement can be damaging if used in the wrong manner. For example, if you reward employees with extra time off if they remain quiet in training classes then you are offering positive reinforcement for attending training, but not offering any incentive to learn anything. Positive reinforcement should not be used to highlight one behavior over another, but rather to enforce the need for all-around positive results.

Considerations

Positive reinforcement and punishment can both be rendered useless if the timing is bad. For example, your company may have developed a policy of giving raises every year to each employee based on a regularly scheduled annual review. The problem here is that employees become conditioned to know when the reviews are happening and will only work hard prior to the reviews. You can use the positive reinforcement of reviews to give out raises each year, but it will be more productive if the schedule varies from year to year. If punishment is applied before all of the facts are accounted for, then employees will develop a sense of rebellion in response to punishment rather than seeing it as a deterrent to a particular activity.

About the Author

George N. Root III began writing professionally in 1985. His publishing credits include a weekly column in the "Lockport Union Sun and Journal" along with the "Spectrum," the "Niagara Falls Gazette," "Tonawanda News," "Watertown Daily News" and the "Buffalo News." Root has a Bachelor of Arts in English from the State University of New York, Buffalo.

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